


Middle Ground

by reynabethh



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-05-13
Updated: 2017-05-17
Packaged: 2018-10-31 10:36:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,451
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10897584
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/reynabethh/pseuds/reynabethh
Summary: Shiro is tired and stressed from exams all while Keith is being... Keith.





	1. Chapter 1

It had been a long day. Shiro was tired and stressed from having to study for three exams that week, but he still had to stay up to study for his other three exams on Monday and Tuesday.

It was only a ten minute walk to his apartment from the college, but he couldn’t bring himself to walk as fast as he normally would. He wasn’t looking forward to all the studying he still had to do.

He sighed. This was not what he wanted to be doing on a Friday night, not while Keith was out doing… whatever he was doing. He could only hope he wasn’t with that attractive guy from his chemistry class.

Shiro wasn’t in that class, and he had never taken chemistry before so he couldn’t help Keith with his homework. Which meant that Keith had to get help from someone else. Who was, according to Keith, apparently very smart and sweet. Since when did Keith care if someone was sweet or not?

He didn’t even know why Keith needed help with that class in the first place. Shiro had no doubt Keith could get through with a ninety on his own.

Everyone seemed to think Keith was stupid when they met him because of his problems with authority. Either that, or they immediately got a crush on him. Of course, Shiro couldn’t say that he didn’t fall into one of those categories, but that wasn’t the point. He didn’t just hang out with Keith because he thought he was attractive, Keith was… a whole lot more to him than that.

He couldn’t decide which one would annoy him more; if that guy was hanging out with Keith just because he felt sorry for him or if that guy was hanging out with him just because he wanted to fuck him.

He tried to put those thoughts out of his head, since both made him annoyed to an extreme degree.

Before he could stop himself, he was angrily stomping home instead of tiredly dragging himself. At least it took him less time to get back.

When he finally got to his door, he got his keys out and tried to unlock it, but it was already unlocked. That was weird, was he really so tired that he forgot to lock his door? Last time he checked, he didn’t have a roommate.

Then he heard someone giggle inside. It was Keith, which was not a good sign, since he only giggled when he was drunk.

He heard another voice, too. He wasn’t too sure who it was, but he knew he’d heard it before.

I am not going to like this, he thought, before slowly opening the door.

If he hadn’t already been so angry and upset before getting there, he probably wouldn’t gotten more upset at what he saw. Instead, he just let out a breath of relief.

The love of Shiro’s life who would never love him back (because Shiro’s life was a tragedy) was sitting on the couch, giggling like crazy. Meanwhile, the roommate of said love of Shiro’s life, Lance, was rolling around on the floor and also giggling like a madman.

“Hi Shiro!” Keith jumped up from where he was sitting on the couch to give him a hug.

Shiro dropped his bag and returned the hug. It felt nice, even though he knew Keith was just acting like this because he got really touchy when he was drunk. “Hi Keith. And, um… Lance.” Lance stopped rolling around on the floor and giggling, only just realizing that Keith wasn’t on the couch anymore. “What exactly are you guys doing in my apartment? And how did you get in?”

“Well, we decided to get drunk for reasons you don’t need to know about,” Lance said, sitting up. “But we ran out of alcohol, so we came and got some of yours. Keith picked the lock.”

“Did you know I can do that?” Keith said, still hugging him. He was so warm, and it had been getting kind of chilly outside. Shiro never wanted to let go of him. He was exhausted and all he wanted to do was pick him up and bring him to his bedroom so they could fall asleep together. Being as drunk as he was, Keith would probably even go along with it.

Lance would want to come too, though, and that sort of ruined Shiro’s dream of blissfully falling asleep with Keith in his arms. Not to mention that he still had to study… and why were these two getting drunk anyway, didn’t they have exams as well?

He couldn’t exactly kick them out, considering how drunk they were. Shiro sighed. “I figured you were the one coming in here and stealing my food while I’m in class.” He smiled at Keith, who blushed (it was definitely the alcohol), which made Shiro blush (he wished he had alcohol to blame it on). “You guys can stay overnight, but can you please try to be quiet? I have to study.”

Keith let go of him and frowned. “I was worried you might want to do that.”

“Don’t you guys have exams too?” This conversation was too much for him. He just wanted to take some tylenol and go to bed. It was taking all of his willpower to convince himself that he still needed to study.

“Nah, both me and Keith wrote our last exam today.” Lance said.

“Even if we still had exams, we wouldn’t be studying because we’re tired as fuck and we’ve worked our asses off all week so we’d give ourselves a break, just like you should. Right, Lance?” Keith walked over to the table to pick up a bottle of vodka. When had Shiro bought vodka?

“Yep.” Lance said.

Keith poured some vodka into a cup and handed it to Shiro. He stared at it for a couple of seconds and said, “Fine, but I’m not drinking.” Then he poured it down the sink.

“If you say so.” Keith was smiling again.

“And I’m not even giving you the chance to convince me to. I’m going to bed.” Shiro took off his shoes and headed towards his room, but Keith caught his hand.

“Goodnight.” He said, placing a kiss next to Shiro’s mouth.

Lance looked like he was trying not to laugh. Shiro couldn’t remember whether he said goodnight back or not because that was when his brain decided to completely shut off. He flopped into bed and fell asleep right away.


	2. Chapter 2

Shiro woke up to the sound of banging pots, meaning Keith and Lance were still there. Why they would be banging pots even though they both had hangovers, he didn’t know. Then again, there wasn’t much he did understand about their relationship. 

He knew they’d been friends before they started college, and were roommates ever since the start of college. They often got into petty fights, but they were very supportive and protective of each other. Keith knew next to everything about Lance, and Lance knew next to everything about Keith.

That’s just how it was.

Shiro got jealous of Lance sometimes. He was pretty sure their relationship wasn’t romantic. Lance had a boyfriend, which didn’t necessarily mean anything, but he didn’t seem like the kind of person who would cheat. 

Besides, Keith would have told him if he was involved in something like this. 

Still, Shiro couldn’t help himself. Lance got to hug Keith all the time, and Shiro had caught them cuddling once or twice. When he stayed over at Keith’s apartment, Keith would offer him his bed only to go sleep in Lance’s bed (with Lance also in the bed) instead of the couch. They were the kind of friends who probably made out “platonically” when Lance’s boyfriend wasn’t around. 

He knew he had no right to be jealous, he just wished he got to spend more time with Keith. He wasn’t normally this jealous when he liked someone, it was just Keith who managed to get him like this. It was infuriating at times. 

He met Keith about a year ago, at the college orientation. They were starting at the same time, even though Shiro was a year older and had been forced to take a year off to work so he could afford going to college. 

Keith had been standing alone at the back of the crowd. Shiro couldn’t tell if he was really paying attention to the orientation or not. Suddenly, Shiro wasn’t able to pay attention to the orientation either. The last time he’d layed eyes on such a beautiful boy was… well, never. He’d never seen anyone as beautiful as Keith. For the record, he still hasn’t met anyone as beautiful as Keith. 

Shiro was abruptly pulled out of his thoughts by more banging pots and a “for fuck’s sake, Lance!” 

He sat up and got out of bed. He figured he should check on them to make sure one of their fights hadn’t escalated to the point where they were physically hurting each other. This kind of thing probably happened all the time at their place, but this was his apartment and he didn’t want anything to break. 

“What’s going on?” Shiro asked, stumbling out of his room. 

He wasn’t awake enough to comprehend what he saw when he got to the kitchen. There was pancake batter all over the fridge, flour all over the stove, a couple of pans and bowls on the floor, and a carton of melted ice cream on the counter. 

Fuck, he needed that ice cream for his study breaks. 

He tried to convince himself this was all a part of the college experience. 

Lance pointed at the fridge. “Keith did that.” He said. 

Keith stared at Lance with anger in his eyes. “You’re the one who always insists on having pancakes when you get hungover! What did you expect? My head hurts and I’m tired. You pushed me!” 

Lance stared back at him, annoyed. “I didn’t push you! And we do this all the time without spilling batter everywhere.”

Once again, Shiro didn’t understand anything about how their friendship worked. How did they pass any of their classes while living together?

Keith grumbled something, then looked at Shiro. “I’m sorry, Shiro.” He grabbed the paper towel and started wiping off the fridge. 

Shiro tried not to be too annoyed. It was just an accident and everyone was tired. Besides, Keith looked like he was truly sorry and getting angry at someone like Keith took a level of strength that Shiro did not have. He sighed. “Just… clean it up, please. I need to study.” He picked up his books and headed back to his room. 

After closing the door behind him, he heard Lance say “I’m sorry too, Shiro.” 

Fifteen minutes later, he heard them leave. They were surprisingly quiet. 

Also surprisingly, his studying went well for the rest of the morning, other than the fact that he couldn’t take his beloved ice cream breaks. He thought about going out to get more, but he didn’t want to break the wonderful concentration he had by going to the grocery store. 

Instead, he suffered through his breaks by drinking water and ended up taking less breaks, as a result. At around four o’clock, he crashed on the couch from exhaustion. There was a reason he normally took so many ice cream breaks; the refreshed him and kept him motivated.

After ten minutes of lying dead on the couch, he heard his phone buzz. He sat up to reach for his it to see who was texting him, just in case it was an emergency. 

It was Keith.

>> srry about last night. and about this morning. i know how important effective studying is to u, so im going to the grocery store to get some more ice cream. i’ll drop it off at ur place in half an hour. i promise i wont interrupt u. 

A minute later, he sent a second text.

>> is cherry ice cream ok? im getting cherry ice cream. btw dont try to talk me out of doing this bc “i dont have to” or whatever 

Shiro stared at his phone screen for five whole minutes. Keith had never written him such a long text before, normally he just got half a sentence, maybe one sentence at most. If he had something serious to talk about, or just wanted to talk for a while, he would either call or come over. Which… well, he was doing one of those things. 

Fuck! Keith was coming over and he wasn’t presentable in the slightest. Although it did brighten him up that Keith had offered to get him more ice cream, he wasn’t in such a great mood. He was tense and stressed about these exams. He had slept well enough the night before, but he was still exhausted. He didn’t remember the last time he ate something, now that he thought about it. Two days ago, maybe?

Keith had seen him when he’d just woken up that morning, and he’d seen him when he was very drunk in the past. Still, he didn’t want to make it a regular thing, and he preferred to be presentable around the people who he was in love with. Even if said person told him that he didn’t want to interrupt him.

Not that he often fell in love with people. People like Keith didn’t tend to walk into his life that much. 

He stood up to get changed, clean himself up, get something to eat, and generally make himself presentable. 

Then, after taking one step away from the couch, he decided he was way too tired to do any of that and sat back down until he heard a knock on the door.

He managed to get himself up for long enough to open the door, but immediately went back to the couch and fell face-first onto it. 

Keith stepped in and closed the door behind him. Shiro refused to let himself look at him. If he did, he didn’t know if he’d have the energy to keep himself from saying something stupid and ridiculous like “Why don’t we eat cherry ice cream together more often? I’m in love with you.” 

Keith coughed and dropped the bag he was carrying, which had the ice cream and something else in it. “What did you just say?” Keith asked.

Fuck. Shiro had said that out loud. In front of Keith. He’d said it without even having to look at him. The worst part? Keith and Lance drank all his alcohol the night before so he couldn’t pretend to have been drinking. Fuck!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm not really sure where this is going? i have ideas though dw

**Author's Note:**

> should i continue this?


End file.
